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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
0:50
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:52
Let's get into it.
0:53
Hi guys.
0:54
Today we've got a very special guest for you on the podcast.
0:55
His name is John Cooper.
0:56
So if that name is not familiar to you, it should be because he is the lead vocalist and
1:00
bassist for the twice Grammy nominated and 12 time platinum selling band, Skillet.
1:05
So Skillet is actually one of the best selling and most streamed rock bands of the 21st
1:10
century.
1:11
They're an incredibly successful band.
1:12
But guys in this podcast, we don't get into a lot of that.
1:15
I mean, we talk a little bit about Skillet.
1:17
We talk a little bit about music, but we talk about a lot of other things because one thing
1:21
about John is he's kind of inched his way into the podcast space, but also the theology
1:26
space and the being critical of the church space.
1:28
He's actually gone viral a couple of times over the last maybe three or four months because
1:32
he's been talking about things that are very, very important for the church.
1:35
He's talking about pastors.
1:37
He's talking about how a lot of pastors are just worried about being cool.
1:40
They're not necessarily worried about spraying the gospel.
1:42
They're just trying to make people feel good.
1:43
And so we spent a lot of time talking about that.
1:45
And he also has a new book that he has self published called awake and alive to truth.
1:49
And so this is kind of, I think as he described it, theology for dummies, but it just makes
1:53
apologetics a little bit more digestible for a lot of people.
1:57
And I feel like there's a lot of points that are made in that book that a lot of us can
1:59
get down with and a lot of us can understand where he's coming from.
2:02
But it was a very interesting conversation because again, most interviews with John Cooper
2:06
are just about, Hey, it's cool.
2:08
That's cool.
2:09
It's been around since the nineties.
2:10
You know, what's it like to her with your wife and taking your kids out and all that stuff
2:13
is very cool.
2:14
All those are very, very important topics and fun things to talk about.
2:17
But I figured in our time today that you guys would want to hear about a little bit more
2:20
of some of those deeper level things so guys without further ado, let's get into it.
2:27
John Cooper, welcome to undaunted life a man's podcast.
2:31
What is up?
2:32
It's cool to be here with you.
2:33
Well, man, I'm happy to be here with you.
2:36
And specifically, I just told you off air, but I feel like I've been surrounded by John
2:39
Cooper as of late.
2:41
And it doesn't have to do with the thing that most people know you by, which is your music.
2:44
So I don't want to give short shrift to your music.
2:46
I feel like that's a good place for us to start.
2:48
But there are a lot of other topics that I know my audience wants to get into.
2:51
But obviously, you're the front man and one of the founders of Skillet, which is legitimately
2:56
one of the most successful rock bands of the modern era, you know, kind of fits into that
3:00
new metal category, even though you probably have some other categories that you would
3:03
be comfortable being included in.
3:06
But there was another interview that you did.
3:07
And I can't remember which podcast off the top of my head.
3:11
And you were talking a lot about early on in your career where you were part ownership
3:16
of a venue or something like that.
3:18
And that venue had a lot of the solid state and tooth and nail bands that would come through.
3:23
And you're talking to a solid state kid.
3:25
My favorite band of all time is Zayo.
3:27
I loved embodiment.
3:28
I loved living sacrifice, like those types of bands, Norma Jean, especially when Josh
3:33
Gagan was still on there.
3:34
But I just remember you talking about how the overwhelming majority of the guys that you
3:38
met from those bands were not believers.
3:40
These were not Christians.
3:42
And I remember hearing other stories about I think it was embodiment specifically where
3:46
they said, well, we just kind of had to make a call where we could have done these bar
3:49
shows and got paid two or 300 bucks, or we can do a church show and get paid 12 or 1500
3:55
bucks.
3:56
And so we just decided not to cuss in our music and we didn't drink around the pastors
3:59
when we were introduced.
4:00
But kind of take us through what that was like for you because you're one of those legitimate
4:04
Christians that you've been a follower of a disciple of Jesus from a very young age.
4:08
What was that like for you running a venue where these people were kind of just basically
4:12
posturing?
4:13
Right.
4:14
Well, first of all, I don't know, I think I might feel bad for you that you've been surrounded
4:20
by John Cooper for the last month or so.
4:24
It's probably not good, probably a little too much coop.
4:28
Anyway, yeah, you know, and I probably will say before we jump in, I probably wouldn't
4:35
say that I had personal, in other words, all the bands you just mentioned, I don't know
4:41
if I've met any of those bands, but none of them, I don't think are any of the bands
4:45
that I was referring to.
4:47
And of course, we're speaking in generalizations, but I just want to make that clear, I remember
4:53
those bands, Zayo and Living Sacrifice, for sure, but I never met them.
4:57
But you're right, you know, I wasn't an owner, it was basically my pastor.
5:02
He had a heart for evangelism, heart for discipleship, heart for the kingdom of God,
5:08
but he loved music and he believed that music was a very viable way to share the gospel.
5:13
And of course, I did as well.
5:15
And so I was very impacted by my pastor and he ran a, like a little club in the basement
5:20
of the church, but it got to be fairly big.
5:23
I mean, we'd have two, three, 400 people, you know, a night and on a big, big night,
5:27
we'd have 800 packed into that little room, it was the 90s.
5:31
So, you know, mid to late 90s was great for rock music, for little clubs and coffeehouses,
5:37
everybody's mosh, you know, there's no rare to even stand, you know, you could barely,
5:42
you couldn't move, you just stood there, everybody ran into each other, it's quite fun.
5:46
Anyway, great era for music, great era for Christian music, right?
5:50
We had, you said, tooth and nail, you had all of these fringe sounds, metal, death metal,
5:59
speed metal, but also alternative and very out of the box.
6:04
The big expense done the richer before they became a big mainstream act was one of the
6:08
bands we had come into our club, just doing very out of the box, Christian music.
6:14
It was pretty exciting, but it was really disheartening, really, really disheartening
6:19
at the amount of people bands that I spoke with that I just saw, I don't know if any
6:25
of these guys are saved or maybe one of them is maybe some of them had a church background,
6:31
but none of these people, I shouldn't say none of them, excuse me.
6:34
That's not true.
6:35
Some of the people I did make great connections with, Sonny from POD, somebody I made a good
6:40
connection with.
6:41
There were people that loved Jesus, but more often than not, I was just like, why would
6:47
you do this kind of music if you're not passionate about Christ?
6:51
If Christ hasn't changed your life, then before you go on stage, I would love to share the
6:56
gospel with you and maybe, maybe you could get saved and maybe God could change your
7:02
life.
7:03
It kind of gave me a bad taste for Christian music and realizing that just because you
7:09
have the label of Christian musician doesn't mean that we're about the same thing, because
7:14
I am all about the real Christian life, if not, what are we wasting our time for playing
7:21
Christian music if we are not changed on the inside?
7:25
Yeah, and I think I was a little bit dismissive whenever I just added all these bands and
7:29
put them in this gigantic category, because obviously there were believers, and then there
7:32
were, there were bands with Christians in them, but they would not have called themselves
7:35
a Christian band.
7:36
You know, I have Matt Greiner, who's the drummer of August Burns Red, who's a big supporter
7:41
of what we do, and they're, you know, not everybody in that band kind of believes the
7:45
same thing in the same way.
7:47
And so they're not a Christian band as you would probably think of as a Christian band,
7:51
but I remember you brought up Sonny with POD.
7:53
I remember when POD was, it was announced early on that they were going to go on tour
7:57
with corn.
7:58
This was, I think, around the satellite album when that was released.
8:01
And my, my head was, I was like, no, no, you can't do that.
8:04
If you go out on the, you're with corn, you're going to start, you know, sacrificing children
8:08
on the altar at the show and you're going to do all these weird things.
8:11
But it was, it was an opportunity.
8:13
And I remember Sonny talking about this is an opportunity to get, to get in front of another
8:16
audience that you would otherwise get in front of.
8:19
And that's how you do spread the gospel.
8:21
And that was one thing that was interesting about your book, which I guess now would be
8:24
a good time to transition to that, but you just released a book not that long ago called
8:28
Awaken Alive to Truth, Finding Truth in the Chaos of a Relativistic World.
8:33
And it's a very accessible book.
8:37
It's an apologetic book.
8:38
It's also a little bit autobiography.
8:40
And it's, it kind of gives you a little bit of information on kind of philosophy as well,
8:45
kind of modern philosophies of how we do things.
8:48
But from the very beginning, if you wouldn't even just mind just briefly, you didn't publish
8:52
this with some big Christian publisher, right?
8:54
And we'll leave them nameless, but I know that there was interest in that.
8:57
But the, the, just that I got from you is that the content, once they saw the content,
9:03
they were just like, whoa, this is maybe a little bit too much for us.
9:06
And then you went the self publishing route.
9:08
So first of all, if I've got any part of the story incorrect, go ahead and correct the
9:12
record.
9:13
But what was the process like for you getting Awaken Alive to Truth out to us?
9:17
No, you're, you're actually, I mean, correct.
9:21
And I won't, of course, throw anybody under the bus either, but I know I will say this
9:26
one thing.
9:27
I don't know why they wouldn't publish it.
9:29
So I think one could make an assumption that perhaps this was, it was just too, I don't
9:36
know on the nose or maybe it was too raw.
9:39
Maybe it was too, I don't know didn't pull any punches, but I find it really strange because
9:46
I'm sure you know, listeners probably know, I mean, these days, the very, if you're a
9:50
publishing company, the best thing that you want to do is you want to, you want to sign
9:55
somebody who already has a base, you know, 20 years ago, if you're a publishing company,
10:01
you want to sign somebody that's got a great book and you want to try to create a brand
10:05
with that person.
10:07
These days is different because of social media.
10:09
You either have a brand or you don't have a brand, right?
10:12
And so publishing companies want to sign with people who have a brand.
10:16
And if you don't have a brand, they say, hey, we want you to go out, create a brand, get
10:21
your social media thing going, and then we'll talk to you because you've already done the
10:25
work for them.
10:26
Well, here's the weird thing is, I already have a brand, I've already got a name, I've
10:30
already got followers.
10:31
So I thought these companies will really want to do a book with me and they did until they
10:36
saw it.
10:37
And so when they saw it, they were like, yeah, this isn't really what we want to do.
10:41
And I thought it's either a, they just don't think it can sell.
10:44
They don't think it's good and that's viable.
10:47
They might not think it's good or be, this is just a little too much truth.
10:52
And I don't know what the answer is.
10:54
So I don't want to, you know, demean people's heart motives.
10:57
But I found that pretty depressing because I know, I know that we could sell books with
11:05
them.
11:06
So it makes me wonder why that would be, but I found a little bit, it got me down a little
11:10
bit.
11:11
What the book is about is a simple, I call it theology for dummies, you know, like you
11:17
don't have to sit through a big thick John Calvin or Berkoff systematic theology book.
11:24
A lot of people just can't do that.
11:26
They don't have either the brain for that.
11:28
And I can relate to that.
11:29
I didn't graduate college.
11:30
I filled out of college.
11:31
Thankfully, God rescued you and gave me a music career because I'm just not smart enough
11:38
to sit in college and do well, just couldn't.
11:40
So it's not for academic people.
11:44
People that can't sit through a big book like that are like, what are we talking about?
11:48
The Bible is supposed to be understandable for people who were fishermen, people who
11:53
were tax collectors because that's what the disciples were like.
11:56
These weren't the smartest people in the world, right?
11:59
And so the Bible should be accessible to the ordinary person that is not a genius.
12:06
You don't have to be smart to understand who Jesus Christ is.
12:10
He comes to normal laypeople like me and like a lot of people listening, I hope, people
12:14
that are just ordinary folks.
12:16
So my book kind of gives you a theology for dummies.
12:19
This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
12:22
And this is why you need to be a follower of Jesus so the book goes through original
12:27
sin and explains to us why we need to repent for our sins and a little bit of the philosophies
12:33
of the day.
12:34
The reason that things are so different now than they were 10 years ago, because everybody
12:38
knows this, it feels like the whole world has been turned upside down and it has been.
12:43
And there's some reasons for that philosophically and they're worth, they're worth talking about.
12:48
I absolutely agree with that.
12:50
And I mean, 10 years ago, two years ago, I don't recognize the America that we live in
12:54
now.
12:55
I don't recognize the America from two months ago.
12:57
I mean, we're not going to go down a political path, but since Joe Biden has administration,
13:02
this has kind of turned into a third Barack Obama administration, but there's some really
13:06
scary things that are happening with a lot of things and I promise we're not going political.
13:10
So I want to circle back to the book because I think you were right in that there is a
13:14
lot of truth here, but it is very accessible.
13:16
It's very digestible.
13:17
It's a short book.
13:18
Guys, we're going to have it on the show notes.
13:20
You got to make sure you go and pick it up because you can only buy it directly from the
13:23
website that we give to you.
13:24
But in chapter five, I'm going to go over a couple of different quotes, but once from
13:27
chapter five and the name of that chapter is simply irresistible.
13:30
But in that chapter, you're talking about the danger of emotion, especially too much
13:34
emotion, especially if that emotion is driving your face.
13:39
So let me read this quote to you, quote, let me say something that may shock you.
13:42
The Christian who does not know what God loves and hates is in danger of believing that God
13:47
approves of evil things.
13:49
Time after time, I have witnessed self-proclaimed Jesus lovers follow their emotions into a
13:53
path of sin.
13:54
And after reaping the consequences, I've watched in disbelief as they blamed God for all of
14:00
their problems.
14:01
Unquote.
14:02
I use that out a little bit more force because I absolutely agree with that.
14:05
But why, where did that come from that made you want to write it and include it in the
14:09
book?
14:10
Yeah.
14:11
It's a, I think that a lot of Christians today are completely uncomfortable with even the
14:20
statement that God hates, like God hates, fill in the blank, right?
14:27
Right.
14:28
They're uncomfortable that, you know, God is love.
14:30
He doesn't hate stuff.
14:31
Yes.
14:32
He does.
14:33
We know what he hates because he gave us his own words.
14:37
He, he, and he hates a lying tongue.
14:41
You know, he gives us tons of lists of sin, their idolatry, sexual immorality.
14:47
God gives us these things and he says, I hate these things.
14:51
And he loves justice.
14:53
God loves righteousness.
14:55
So a lot of Christians are very uncomfortable with the idea that there are things that God
15:00
hates.
15:01
I think it comes from a wrong theology and I don't want to get totally deep into theology
15:06
here, but it comes from an idea that one of God's attributes can sort of be the pinnacle.
15:15
So in other words, we know that God is love because the Bible says that, right?
15:20
People put that at the top of the attribute pyramid.
15:23
God is love at the top and everything else is subordinate to his love.
15:28
That is an incorrect way at looking at God.
15:30
God is at all times everything that he is.
15:35
There's never a time when God stops being loving, but we also know that God will judge,
15:42
right?
15:43
We know that there will be a day of judgment when God, when God will separate his people
15:49
and the people that are not his people.
15:51
And so in that sense, would it be okay to say God is loving even when he is sending
15:58
someone to hell?
15:59
I say, yes, that's absolutely accurate.
16:02
God is even loving when he does that because God can never stop being loving.
16:07
So it comes from a theological, I think problematic belief.
16:15
It's coming from that wrong theological place, but it works out in this, yeah, but I don't
16:22
feel good about that.
16:24
I don't feel good about a God that says that this is righteous and this is unholy and I
16:30
don't feel good about a God that says you may not do these things.
16:35
And so that is, that's what that chapter is about.
16:37
It's not about what you feel.
16:39
It's about what is objectively righteous according to God's words.
16:43
If God says it, it's right.
16:46
And you know what else is amazing because I don't want to just sound like I'm being mean.
16:51
When we come in line with whatever God says is righteous, we are going to find that our
16:56
lives are much better.
16:58
We are going to have much more joy.
17:00
We're going to be blessed more.
17:02
We're going to have better relationship with our spouse, with our kids, with our finances.
17:08
Everything is going to work better because you are saying to God, you are the Lord, whatever
17:16
you say is right and I will fall in line with what you say, you will find that your life
17:21
is actually going much better than if you are your own God.
17:26
So that's why I wrote that.
17:28
Well, but in the modern context, John, like if you can't look for truth outside yourself
17:33
because it's your truth, right?
17:35
Your truth is important.
17:36
Your lived experience, it's, it's when the church and culture is downstream of postmodernism,
17:41
right?
17:42
Or just the church being downstream of culture in general.
17:44
That's where you get these sentiments and we'll certainly get more into that here in
17:48
a second, you know, with this next quote, but also when we, we talk about some of your
17:51
Facebook posts that have made the rounds here recently, but another quote that I didn't want
17:55
to get into from the book was from chapter eight, which was my favorite chapter of the
17:58
book.
17:59
It's called Jesus the Lion.
18:00
So obviously I got a lion head over my shoulder to constantly encourage people with undaunted
18:04
life to seek the lion of Judah, not because the Lamb of God is wrong, but if you only
18:08
worship the Lamb of God, you're worshiping an incomplete picture of who Jesus is.
18:12
He is 100% lamb and 100% lion, not 50, 50, not 75, 25.
18:17
He's 100% of both.
18:19
And so I feel like you really elucidated that a lot within that chapter, but I do want to
18:23
read this quote from this and get you to kind of go into a little bit further.
18:26
It's this quote, in our modern churches, we shy away from the harshness of the reality
18:30
of sin and we tend to focus more on the fact that Jesus understands our pain and forgives
18:35
our sin.
18:36
Now it is indeed wonderful news that Jesus understands and forgives.
18:40
However, the more we soften his words about his hatred for sin, including anger, the less
18:45
we understand our depravity and the state of our sin.
18:49
Unquote.
18:50
I felt like that was very important.
18:51
And it really went back to a lot of things that you just said with your previous answer.
18:55
But why did you feel the need to drive that point home, especially in the context of the
18:59
modern church?
19:00
Yeah, it is so very important because we have kind of created, I know because of what your
19:08
podcast is about, I know you won't mind me saying this.
19:12
We've created a just a hippie, soft, kind of a wimpy Jesus, you know, I mean, now that's
19:19
not to say again, it is wonderful that Jesus knows my pain and that is an incredible thing.
19:26
The God of the universe cares what John Cooper is going through today.
19:31
You know, I got to fight with my wife before the podcast, right?
19:34
Because I'm sometimes not a good husband.
19:37
That actually cares about the fact that I'm having a hard day.
19:42
That is actually amazing stuff, but God is not, Jesus wasn't a wimp.
19:48
He wasn't like, whatever you want is okay with me, just live your best life.
19:53
That is not what we're talking about.
19:55
I want to, I'll tell you a true story.
19:57
This happened last week.
19:58
You want to hear this?
19:59
Let's do it.
20:00
There's a guy that started coming to my church and a brand new guy.
20:05
I invited him to come to my young adults group, me and my wife lead a young adults group at
20:10
my church since we've been home for COVID.
20:12
So he comes to my young adults church.
20:14
He doesn't know anything about Jesus.
20:16
So I tried explaining to him what the Trinity was because he said, well, I've always heard
20:21
that you could pray to God.
20:22
He said, but John, you pray to Jesus.
20:25
Why am I praying to Jesus or is it okay to pray to Jesus or do I have to pray to God?
20:30
So I was trying to explain to him who Jesus was.
20:33
So I gave him some reading material, I said, start in the book of John.
20:36
So he started it in the book of John.
20:38
And he came back the next week, which was last week and which I preached at church.
20:43
And before the meeting, he said, he came to me and he said, hey, John, I've been reading
20:47
the book of John and this Jesus is so amazing the way he loves people and I said, that's
20:51
so great.
20:52
And then I preached and I preached on Revelation 19.
20:56
And if people don't know, Revelation 19 is, that's when it says that Jesus comes riding
21:01
on a white horse in judgment and to wage war.
21:05
And he comes up to me after the church meeting and he says, well, I thought I had this Jesus
21:10
thing figured out, but now it sounds like he's almost like a warrior.
21:14
And I said, well, that's the thing.
21:16
He loves perfectly and he judges perfectly.
21:20
He is the warrior king.
21:22
And so it is very important that we understand that the love of God is amazing, but the justice
21:30
of God is also amazing because without the justice of God, we would serve a God who approves
21:38
of hatred and anger and rape and murder and child abuse and sexual abuse.
21:48
I mean, we could go on and on and on, but if God doesn't judge those things, that means
21:53
that God approves of those things.
21:54
He let's him slide.
21:56
And now that's a God that's devoid of justice.
21:59
So yes, he is love, but he is also righteous.
22:03
And that's something that we as Christians should celebrate.
22:07
And it's, it's that lack of understanding.
22:09
That's when you get pieces of who God is.
22:11
That's when, you know, when he came full of grace and truth, again, he was 100% grace
22:15
and 100% truth.
22:17
You can't have one without the other.
22:18
They're not opposite sides of the same coin.
22:20
They're the same side of the same coin.
22:22
And so I thought that that was very, very good.
22:24
And guys will move on past the book, but you've got to go pick up your own copy of
22:27
"Awaken Alive the Truth" again, check it out in the show notes.
22:30
But as I mentioned to, to you, Offair, and at the beginning of this, I feel like I've
22:33
been surrounded by you.
22:34
One of the reasons is because of a somewhat recent Facebook post that you made that made
22:39
the rounds.
22:40
And that was on November 6th of 2020.
22:41
And the name of the post was make pastors uncool again.
22:45
Okay.
22:46
And so this post was a short post, but it was very pointed and this was shared around and
22:50
shared with me.
22:51
And so I certainly want to get your thoughts on this a little bit further because there
22:54
were a lot of people that were okay with the things that you said, they agreed with it.
22:59
And then you made a lot of people angry, you ruffled a lot of feathers.
23:01
Again, it's kind of that truth versus making people comfortable thing.
23:04
But let me read this quote to you.
23:06
I think this was the second paragraph of the post and this is it quote, many Christians
23:09
have been saying this for years and it's past time that I joined them.
23:12
I'm tired of celebrity pastors.
23:15
Passers aren't supposed to be cool.
23:16
They're not supposed to be fashion trendsetters.
23:18
We are all called to decrease that Christ would increase both in our hearts and in our
23:23
lives, John three 30, his fame should be known, not ours.
23:27
Celebrity pastors get out of the way, you're hogging the spotlight by making yourself
23:31
the story.
23:32
Instead, you should take some hits from the front lines by stating clearly what God commands.
23:37
Celebrity pastors seldom do this.
23:39
Instead, most of what we hear is rhetorical gobbledygook veiled mysticism and repackaged
23:44
new age movement self help promotional material disguised as the work of the spirit.
23:49
And so immediately when I read that section, I couldn't help but think of Carl Linds.
23:54
This was a guy that years and years ago, I wrote a blog for a group called dead men.
24:00
And I was talking about how Carl Linds was the most dangerous pastor in the United States,
24:04
and they changed the title of it without me knowing.
24:05
And they said, we're just going to say he's one of or he might be, but I thought he was
24:09
so dangerous because of how cool he was.
24:12
And because he was this trendy New York guy and oh, he hangs out with Bieber and he hangs
24:16
out with KD and low look how cool he is, but then when he goes on the view and he's staring
24:21
down the barrel of Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg and he's asked about abortion, he just turns
24:25
into a little little boy, you know, he's just kind of walking around doesn't know which
24:29
way is up.
24:30
He had a moment at that time to talk about the sanctity of human life and he made some
24:34
sort of weird postmodern nonsense argument.
24:37
And so again, I want to get back to what you wrote, but in that specific section there,
24:42
was there somebody in particular you were thinking about or was it just this macro category
24:46
of these influencer Instagram pastors that have these congregations that are kind of
24:51
acting in this way?
24:53
Well, I think it's a little bit of both.
24:55
I mean, I think what you just said, what you just said is great and I would have loved
24:59
to have read that article that you wrote a couple of years back, you said, because there
25:05
is both the generalization.
25:08
We all see this happening.
25:09
You know, we can we can see it.
25:11
But I did write it after the Carl Lynch thing really blew up and it that was the impetus
25:19
for it wasn't about him.
25:21
But yeah, I kind of think, hey, I mean, we've all noticed this happening.
25:26
And you know, I think I said, I said in some, some interview I did, I said, if you're not
25:33
prepared as a, as a celebrity pastor to answer a question on abortion, I mean, that doesn't
25:41
make any sense, that this is your job.
25:44
And I said, any pastor that spends more time doing sit-ups than how he would answer a question
25:49
about abortion on national TV, that you're in the wrong profession.
25:54
And I do know there were some people that maybe didn't like what I wrote.
25:58
I honestly don't understand why because yeah, you should act appropriately for what your
26:04
job is.
26:05
I know some people said, Oh, John, you're allowed to look cool, blah, blah, blah.
26:09
I said, yeah, I'm not a pastor.
26:11
My job is being an entertainer.
26:13
That's my actual job.
26:15
And I'm supposed to look appropriately for the job.
26:19
If your job is pastoring people, your job is understanding the times.
26:24
It is training up men and women to be disciples of Christ.
26:29
And it is about taking hits on the front line.
26:31
You're the ones that are supposed to be saying what we lay people need to hear.
26:37
And when I see these pastors ducking and dodging, constantly ducking and dodging like they're
26:42
in a boxing match and well, I'm going to duck this, ducked it like, come on, say the truth
26:49
so you can be the one that take the hits and train us.
26:53
That just really bugs me and I just, those wimpy pastors, I just don't have time for those
26:59
people anymore.
27:00
It reminds me of that scripture, it's in the Old Testament, what's the scripture?
27:06
The prophets, remember the prophets that say there's peace when there is no peace?
27:11
I believe it's in Isaiah, right?
27:14
And God says, hey, basically I'm coming on judgment against my own people because your
27:19
prophets said that there was peace when there is no peace.
27:23
That's what I see many, many of our pastors doing.
27:27
That is not saying we're not supposed to be at peace with the ideologies of the world.
27:32
So stop acting like there's peace when there is none.
27:35
Well, and part of that, John is because I've been very critical of some of these mega church
27:39
pastors that aren't taking on, I don't want to just, you know, use that as a conglomerate
27:42
because there's some, you know, really good mega church pastors.
27:46
That's why they're mega because they're awesome.
27:48
But the thing is, is when you won't tackle the true issues of the day, how can you expect
27:53
your flock to?
27:54
And so you've got, I've got an enormous church in my backyard.
27:57
I think it's still, you know, a multi-site church that's, you know, the largest church
28:00
in North America.
28:02
And you know, the church doesn't really like to take positions on LGBTQ issues, on race
28:07
issues.
28:08
They don't really like to go into those things.
28:10
And if they do, they kind of like dip a toe in and then hop right back out or it's very
28:14
generalized stuff.
28:15
And I understand we got to keep the doors open.
28:17
We got to keep paying the bills.
28:19
But at a certain point, you have to stand up and do something that's going to make you
28:22
and potentially some of your flock uncomfortable and maybe even get some of them to not come
28:26
back, which I think plays into what you said really at the end.
28:29
And I think this is how you wrapped it up.
28:31
I'll read the quote, "Playtime is over.
28:33
The spiritual battle is raging and the field is full of wimps and boys who have never picked
28:38
up a sword because it just feels mean.
28:41
We need generals and leaders who don't care about their brand, their look, their likes,
28:46
or making allegiances with the world.
28:48
In short, it's time to make pastors uncool again."
28:51
Now, to kind of go to a different degree, I think where you and I might disagree and
28:56
maybe we're just saying the same thing, but saying it differently is I'm honestly okay
29:01
with pastors being cool and being celebrities.
29:04
Like I would much rather, John, that when Fox News or CNN or the New York Times needs
29:10
a quote or some sort of context on a big issue, like I would rather them go to a prominent
29:16
smart dedicated disciple of Christ as opposed to some lefty professor from some random college
29:22
or some quote unquote public servant to get their take on it.
29:25
I would rather a gospel believing Christian do that.
29:28
I mean, am I crazy?
29:29
Can all of these things happen at the same time?
29:32
Absolutely.
29:33
No, I totally agree with that.
29:35
I don't think we disagree.
29:36
Well, I don't think we disagree about that.
29:40
I do think that maybe sometimes when you're writing an article, semantics can play a big
29:46
role in things and yeah, I probably would say it like this, I don't actually care personally
29:53
if someone looks really cool.
29:56
To me, it's an issue of the heart and I think that that's what I think, even though I don't
30:01
know you that well, sounds to me like that's what you were picking up on a few years ago
30:05
when you wrote what you did about the most or one of the most, what you call it dangerous
30:11
pastor.
30:12
I think what you pick up on is like, hey, I don't actually care if you've got six pack
30:16
abs or not.
30:17
If you do, that's fine with me as long as that's not what your life is about and you
30:22
can smell it.
30:23
You can smell it when that's what people's lives are about because they just have this
30:29
thing like they're always looking for how they can build their brand and that's really
30:35
irritating to me.
30:37
At the same time, I've met a bunch of very famous people, very, very famous people who
30:44
don't smell like that.
30:46
They might, I'll tell you, this is a good example.
30:48
I love to brag on people that I think are godly.
30:51
One of my really good friends is a Christian singer called Jeremy Camp.
30:55
I assume a lot of people know who Jeremy Camp is and Jeremy's, I call him the, I always
31:02
call him the American dream because he just like looks like an American polo model or
31:08
something, you know, and he's red, he's got huge biceps and he's good looking, he's got
31:14
the white teeth, he's a great singer, everything Jeremy does, he's good at, but you can talk
31:20
with Jeremy for 30 seconds and no, this is not a guy that actually cares about being
31:26
a rock star.
31:27
He doesn't actually care about looking amazing.
31:29
He just happens to be a great looking, ripped dude, but he loves Jesus and so, no, I agree
31:36
with you.
31:37
I don't think there's anything wrong with actually being a famous person.
31:42
You know what I mean?
31:43
I think C.S.
31:44
Lewis was kind of a famous person.
31:46
G.K. Chesterton, very famous philosopher, one of my favorite philosophers, who is Christian
31:52
Catholic actually, but yeah, there's nothing wrong with actually the fame or actually the
31:59
way you look.
32:00
It's more like the heart motive of people that are more interested in their own brand
32:04
than the fame of Christ and you can smell that stuff a mile away, man.
32:09
I mean, I completely agree with that and part of the thing is is we've become so attracted
32:15
to the basic things in life.
32:17
That's why someone can write a book that says nothing and sell five million copies of it
32:22
because it's it's not actually going to challenge me to change anything.
32:26
So I just read a book recently and I'll probably leave it nameless because I may talk to this
32:29
guy eventually, but it's a it's a massive bestseller.
32:32
It has been a bestseller for over a year, but it's talking about pretty basic things.
32:36
He could have named the book how to be an adult.
32:39
That's how basic the things were and I just read this book and I was like, I didn't need
32:42
any of this.
32:43
So you're telling me I should brush my teeth and floss every day.
32:46
Great check.
32:47
Is there anything else that I should move around?
32:48
And I feel like a lot of pastors, they stay in that super basic area and they just keep
32:53
feeding the flock and the people around them milk.
32:56
And so they'll attract hundreds of thousands, if not millions of followers across all their
33:00
social media platforms because it's just milk.
33:03
They're just throwing milk out because if they started throwing out prime rib, some people
33:07
be like, that doesn't make me feel good.
33:09
I don't think I like that very much.
33:10
It's just like that we can't operate in that way.
33:13
And so I think it comes down to one of the main things I did want to talk to you about,
33:17
which is basically just manhood in general, in general, or masculinity in the church,
33:23
because you mentioned this earlier, they're seemingly this abundance of soft squishy men
33:28
in the modern day church.
33:29
And that's almost seen as the model.
33:31
Like when you think about the typical church guy, everyone has the same guy in mind, right?
33:36
The press shirt, the pleats and the pants and the shoes that I've never seen dirt and
33:42
like, just, hey, I'll pray for your brother and everything's going great.
33:46
And like it's this idea to wear like these manly men, a lot of the men that are the reason
33:51
why I started Undaunted Life, they asked this question of, well, should I be a Christian
33:57
or should I be a man?
33:59
And they don't understand that those can be the same thing.
34:01
And so I guess from your perspective, why would a manly man want to become a Christian
34:06
or be a Christian?
34:09
That is very, very interesting.
34:11
I probably would hold, I probably would hold a few things in tension here.
34:17
And you know how it is when you want to explain everything you think and you want to cover
34:21
bases.
34:22
I will hold a couple of things in tension.
34:25
I will absolutely admit that the church and not just church, even just in the world, you
34:32
know, what do you want to call it?
34:34
The patriarchy, whatever.
34:36
Obviously, there's a lot of things that we did wrong over the last several hundred years.
34:41
Obviously, there was a time when women were treated very poorly in the church as well.
34:49
Almost like you're not smart enough to have an opinion, those type of things.
34:53
You know, a lot of people my age grew up in a household, even in a Christian household
34:57
where the mom's opinion was just looked at, it wasn't just that the man was in charge.
35:03
The mom was just kind of looked at as like, you're not smart enough to know stuff.
35:07
Of course, that kind of sexual abuse, of course, those things existed.
35:12
Has the church not done a great job in the past?
35:15
You know, I think the last few years, we saw a lot of things and the SBC come out about
35:19
women that were abused and it was hushed.
35:22
All of that is wicked, absolutely.
35:25
But it doesn't mean that we need to overcorrect and throw out all of the wonderful things
35:33
that the Bible says about manhood that is actually glorifying to God.
35:37
The fact that a man is supposed to, I'm going to say it, is supposed to be the head of the
35:42
family.
35:43
That is a godly thing that God created, that a man is supposed to protect his wife.
35:48
Now, in the culture today, outside of the church, even saying that is viewed as a sex
35:54
estate man, a man should protect his wife.
35:57
They say, well, a wife should protect their husband too.
36:00
Well, not in the same way, no, actually, that's not exactly accurate, not in the same way.
36:06
That's your duty.
36:07
If somebody breaks into your house and you say to your wife, why don't you go check
36:14
it out?
36:15
That's a dereliction of duty, son.
36:17
It's not the same.
36:18
And so we should not be throwing out the beautiful things that are actually really godly about
36:25
manhood and about womanhood.
36:27
God created those distinctions to glorify himself.
36:31
So I don't want to ever say, hey, we never did anything wrong, but don't throw the baby
36:37
out with a bathwater because I will say this to Christian men who are married.
36:41
The Bible says it like this.
36:43
If I am not soft with my wife and listen to my wife's concerns, then God won't listen
36:49
to my prayers.
36:51
That's a pretty big responsibility.
36:52
I'm supposed to be soft with her, but I'm not supposed to be soft.
36:56
You know what?
36:57
I'm not supposed to be a wimp and I'm not supposed to have a dereliction of duty.
37:01
So I do think that within Christianity, I just think that a lot of people have realized
37:07
that if we want to make peace with the world, that we can make peace with the world if we
37:11
just chop off the fat, you know, they say that, why don't you get to chop off the fat?
37:17
And that's all the parts of the state that are just not comfortable with people.
37:22
And I do think that that's going to be with whether we talk about sexuality and when we
37:27
talk about the patriarchy, there's all those issues, hell.
37:31
And I think they thought, let's just trim all the fat off and talk about the culturally
37:35
acceptable things.
37:37
And then we can win more people.
37:39
So the problem is, is that we are actually trimming off a lot of things we should not
37:44
be trimming out of the gospel.
37:46
So what I would say to men, why would a man want to come into the church?
37:50
Well, I hear you.
37:51
The church isn't doing the best job at celebrating manhood because the world views manhood as
37:59
a cardinal sin and the church is too scared to say it's not.
38:04
And I think even beyond that, I agree with literally all of that beyond that, I feel
38:08
like the churches have done a really poor job, the main pastors, especially of making
38:12
churches man-friendly.
38:13
And so I've talked to several pastors that have created kind of man-friendly environments
38:17
and it's where they focus on the men.
38:19
And by focus on the men, I don't mean once a year they do a cookout or, you know, every
38:23
Saturday at 7 a.m., they do a, you know, a prayer of breakfast or once a month or something
38:27
like that.
38:28
I mean, really making the entire environment man-friendly.
38:31
And that's why I talked a lot about that on episode 176 of my podcast.
38:34
I did an episode called contemporary worship music is for women and effeminate men.
38:40
And so the reason why I went into that is because I wanted to put forth this message
38:44
and the main message of that episode was if you don't like contemporary worship music,
38:50
that's okay because there's this attitude that if you don't like contemporary worship
38:54
music that I've had a worship pastor tell me before that since I don't like contemporary
38:57
worship music that I'm probably not saved.
39:00
And on this episode, I went into some different topics, I kind of gave the top eight problems
39:05
with contemporary worship music and just some of them were, you know, it becomes the reason
39:09
why some people go to our particular church because of the music or, you know, the lyrics
39:13
reduce the God of all creation to kind of like your buddy or, you know, it puts the
39:16
attention on you.
39:18
And then I gave my top five reasons for why contemporary worship music is for women and
39:23
effeminate men.
39:24
And it was number one, women literally consume more of it than men do, right?
39:28
That's just statistics.
39:29
Number two, there's an emphasis on emotions and feeling.
39:32
Number three, it's all lamb and no lion, right, which we talked about.
39:35
Number four is the music is written and/or performed typically by effeminate men or women
39:40
and the lyrical content tends to be homoerotic.
39:44
And so what I mean by that is like if you're singing to Jesus like he's your boyfriend and
39:48
you're a manly dude, a very straight testosterone filled dude, that's not really going to agree
39:52
with you.
39:53
And I went on to kind of give some prescriptions for worship leaders to consider and what men
39:56
like, like me should consider that aren't in that category.
39:58
So I say all that to say this, I will boil it down to a question here.
40:01
What are your thoughts personally on contemporary worship music?
40:06
And do you think that it's having a negative impact, especially on the men inside the church?
40:12
Well, that's pretty insightful stuff.
40:15
I need to go, I need to go back and listen to that episode because I haven't thought
40:19
about some of those things, very insightful, you know, oh, this is so difficult for me.
40:28
I certainly understand what you're saying.
40:32
I didn't know, I've never heard anybody say if you don't like this contemporary worship
40:39
then maybe you're not saved or maybe this, I've not heard things like that.
40:43
I definitely think that a lot of what's happening in church, let me answer a question by giving
40:48
you a totally different story.
40:50
And I think that you'll understand it's kind of analogous.
40:53
I was dealing with a situation in my church with someone, just a lay person in the church
41:01
that was uncomfortable with some of the way that I was answering a question because I
41:08
was just like, no, this is what the Bible says and blah, blah, blah.
41:12
And so at long story short, we pulled up another pastor who answered the question and I won't
41:20
say it was because people might have sounded mean, but it was another pastor who is a younger
41:25
pastor, he's in the millennial generation who I said, hey, let me play this for you and
41:31
you see if you agree with this.
41:33
In my head, this younger millennial pastor agrees with John Cooper 100%.
41:40
In my mind, we said the exact same thing except that this pastor said it.
41:46
As where I said, no, that doesn't make sense.
41:48
The Bible says this and you get on board with it or you're not following Christ.
41:53
Well, this other pastor said it like this, listen, no, you have to understand how much
41:59
God, how he cares and that's how he said it.
42:04
It took him 10 minutes to say what took me one minute, but we said the same stuff.
42:09
And you know what the person said?
42:11
The person said, well, John, I totally agree with that pastor and I was like, okay, part
42:16
of what we're dealing with here is in fact, a major culture shift, major culture shift
42:22
from generation X to the millennials and even more to the generation zers.
42:28
Part of what is happening is that this, these generations have been raised in such a fashion
42:36
that masculinity is just, masculinity is deemed offensive.
42:41
Not even the words you say, the way that you say it,
42:44
just feels offensive to them.
42:47
And so I do think that a lot of pastors are trying to say,
42:50
how can I possibly reach this generation
42:53
if all that they hear from me is offensive stuff?
42:56
Even if I don't say any words,
42:57
even if I just say is, "Baba, bababa, bababa, bababa," to them it sounds like hate speech.
43:04
So I do think it is very difficult.
43:06
So I would encourage men who are listening.
43:09
If you go to a church that sings worship songs that are as you just heard described,
43:15
right here in "Undaunted," and you're trying to bridge a gap,
43:20
maybe what I would say is try to have a little bit of grace,
43:23
that there are a lot of people that just don't understand how you would feel about it.
43:28
At the same time, I would say to you the same thing that John Cooper said to my pastors,
43:34
which is, "Hey, some of these songs I'm just uncomfortable with.
43:39
I don't believe them. I don't believe the lyrics.
43:42
I don't believe, for instance, I don't want to be too rude here,
43:46
but one of the biggest songs of the last few years was "Reckless Love," God's reckless love.
43:54
I just have a problem with that. His love isn't reckless,
43:58
and it diminishes God's sovereignty.
44:00
It diminishes so many things about the Lord.
44:04
It diminishes the fact that He is in control of all things.
44:07
I'm just uncomfortable singing this, and I don't want to act like I'm not.
44:11
So you have a conversation with your pastor about it,
44:14
hopefully in a loving way, and say, "Hey, I want to sing songs about God that are true,
44:20
and that are not about me, but that are about Him and His attributes."
44:23
So I would say to you, I feel you,
44:25
try to hold a balance of having grace for people that disagree with you,
44:29
but don't feel bad about bringing up the issue with your pastor.
44:33
That's my little bit of advice.
44:35
No, and what's funny is that was the exact advice I gave was,
44:39
"Hey, guys, if you have a problem with this, voice it.
44:42
Don't be a jerk about it, but do voice that to them."
44:44
Then I also put the onus on worship leaders,
44:47
because I got an email out of the blue from a worship leader.
44:49
This was before I released this episode, and he said,
44:51
"Kyle, I just wanted to let you know I appreciate your content,
44:54
because ever since I've been listening to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast,
44:57
I've been considering the men.
44:59
Whenever I choose the songs at my church,
45:00
I've been considering the lyrical content.
45:02
I've been paying attention to the men."
45:04
So I put it on these pastors.
45:05
It's like, "Look, I understand you're more artistic.
45:08
You're more right-brained, but if you're soft,
45:10
the rest of the men in the church can see that.
45:12
If you're more feminine, the rest of the men in the church can see that also.
45:15
If you're not connecting with the men that are in the crowd,
45:18
you can see that too."
45:20
And they should be able to connect with what you're doing,
45:23
because they're not connecting with you.
45:24
They should be connecting with the creator of everything, including you.
45:29
And so since we're on that topic,
45:31
I guess I should ask this question about worship leaders,
45:34
because I don't know if you've talked necessarily about this,
45:37
but it seems like, John, every few months,
45:39
there's a very prominent worship leader or Christian artist of some kind
45:44
that comes out as agnostic or as atheist, right?
45:47
That's the new coming out.
45:48
You're not coming out as gay.
45:49
You're coming out as basically an atheist.
45:52
Why do you think that we're seeing this trend now?
45:55
Because I understand there's been a lot of cultural changes,
45:58
but why do you think we're seeing so much of this happening?
46:01
Yeah, it's really heartbreaking, isn't it?
46:04
And I got to say, I think that's great advice, what you just said.
46:06
I agree with that about the worship leaders, as you just said.
46:10
So great stuff.
46:11
I think that's a wonderful thing.
46:14
It's heartbreaking.
46:15
You know, there are so many reasons this is happening.
46:18
Some of those things are just simply,
46:21
it's the nature of the world right now,
46:23
the ubiquitous nature of the internet.
46:26
Anybody can say anything.
46:29
Everybody has an influence.
46:30
Everybody has a brand.
46:32
And this generation was not taught worldview.
46:38
So in their minds, look, in my mind,
46:41
if I'm listening to some influencer, here I am.
46:43
I come on Undaunted, right?
46:44
And I'm listening to you speak.
46:47
I don't mean as John Cooper, I mean as a listener, I'm a fan.
46:49
Pull it up.
46:51
And all of a sudden you come out and you start saying things
46:54
that are clearly heretical and anti-biblical.
46:57
Well, I just turned Undaunted off.
46:59
I don't want to listen to heretical nonsense, right?
47:02
Not this generation.
47:04
This generation of Christians goes,
47:06
"Huh, that's an interesting point.
47:08
I'll keep listening."
47:09
And they just listen to everything and they fill their minds.
47:13
They fill their minds with atheistic garbage,
47:17
humanistic garbage,
47:18
heretical stuff like Gungar's podcast.
47:22
You know, Gungar who will come on and talk about like,
47:26
"Well, I mean, I don't believe in God anymore, but I still worship."
47:30
You know, one time he was on a podcast talking about
47:33
interesting.
47:34
It would be to worship a God and masturbate at the same time.
47:38
I heard this from a Christian friend and I said to my friend,
47:41
I said, "Brother, why are you listening
47:44
to heretical, satanic, idolatrous crap like that?
47:48
Turn it off."
47:49
I was like, "Well, I'm kind of interested in what he had to say.
47:52
Why?" You know, who else was interested in Eve?
47:55
He was interested in what the serpent had to say.
47:57
And look what happened.
47:59
Turn it off.
48:00
And so I think that because the ubiquitous nature of the internet,
48:05
people are taking in everything and everything and everything.
48:08
And they think that they are a clean slate.
48:11
Like they're just a neutral background.
48:13
And once I get all the information,
48:16
I'll know what is true.
48:18
I will just know what wisdom is.
48:20
And that is not what the Bible says.
48:22
Well, we are not a clean slate.
48:23
We are born into sin.
48:25
You are born into unrighteousness.
48:27
And it is going to tickle your ears
48:30
when you hear stuff that tells you what you want to believe
48:34
rather than the word of God.
48:35
So I think that happened with them.
48:37
I also think that Christian music in general,
48:40
not just Christian music, but Christian worship music,
48:43
itinerant speakers.
48:45
People don't know what itinerant speakers are.
48:48
With all I mean is people who preach,
48:51
but are not part of a local church.
48:53
They just travel constantly and they go everywhere.
48:55
And they go to this church, that church, that church.
48:57
A lot of times, all of that group of people
49:01
don't have a local church and they don't have accountability.
49:04
And they are not being anchored in to relationship with brothers
49:07
who can talk to them about how they are doing
49:10
and encourage them in the faith.
49:12
And you just get out there and you're an island.
49:14
And before you know it, honestly,
49:16
the enemy just works on you and the enemy chips away
49:19
at your sanctification.
49:20
He chips away your holiness.
49:23
He chips away your thought life.
49:24
And all that you ever hear is how amazing you are.
49:27
You're amazing.
49:29
Thank you so much for coming.
49:30
Nobody sings like you.
49:32
Nobody gives the truth like you.
49:34
Before you know it, you become a big famous star.
49:36
And you're not a part of a body.
49:38
So I think all those things play into it.
49:40
So we desperately need to go back to training up young people,
49:45
whether those young people are in high school,
49:48
whether they're going to be musicians, pastors, leaders, plumbers.
49:52
I don't care who you are.
49:53
We need to train these people in the Word of God.
49:55
Because if you're if you are trained in the Word of God,
49:58
you will be unshakeable.
50:00
I love it.
50:02
That's great stuff.
50:03
No, I appreciate your perspective on all of that.
50:04
But you know, I'd be remiss if we didn't get to what a lot of people
50:07
consider to be the best segment of the show.
50:09
It's because this is the nuts and bolts.
50:11
This is the meat and potatoes.
50:12
It is a segment of the show called what would you say to someone that said?
50:16
And then I will fill in the blank and you've got to respond to that.
50:21
And it might be a critique of you.
50:22
It might be just a big topic.
50:24
Who knows?
50:25
But you've got 30 seconds to answer.
50:27
What would you say to someone that said blank?
50:30
And I've got a bunch of them ready to go.
50:31
So you think you're up for it?
50:32
I'm ready, baby.
50:34
Come on now.
50:34
Okay.
50:35
Let's do it.
50:36
First one.
50:36
Let's see how you do.
50:37
What would you say to someone that said?
50:39
Satan works through rock music, thus Christians shouldn't play rock music.
50:44
I would say Satan can work through just about anything.
50:49
I would say that music is created not by the devil, created by the Lord.
50:54
All things were created by God.
50:57
So instead of thinking that the devil owns a genre of music,
51:03
I would say capture that music and bring it back into subjection
51:08
under the lordship of Christ.
51:09
Second Corinthians 10 five.
51:11
See, you're doing great already.
51:12
Like that was the first one.
51:13
We got a few more.
51:14
You're already on a roll.
51:15
Let's go.
51:16
All right.
51:16
What would you say to someone that said it is sinful for Christians to have tattoos?
51:20
Oh, I understand why Christians think that because of the Old Testament.
51:26
I would say that it probably takes a little bit of a longer explanation of Old Testament law
51:30
on what it meant.
51:31
But a short version would be there are some things in the Old Testament
51:35
that were a picture of something in the New Testament.
51:43
There are some things that are not pictures like murder.
51:45
We don't murder.
51:46
We don't steal so and so forth.
51:48
Dietary restrictions, things like that were a picture of something.
51:52
Here's what God wanted.
51:54
God wants to make his people set apart and wholly unto his name.
51:59
And I don't think that God does it any longer from the way that we look.
52:03
He does that now because of Christ's work on the cross, his resurrection.
52:08
And he sanctifies us, which it sets us apart from the center and the pagan.
52:14
All right.
52:16
Next rapid fire question here.
52:17
What would you say to someone that said, I don't like skill.
52:20
Let's music.
52:21
I would say good.
52:23
Listen to Jeremy camp.
52:25
Listen to something else, you know, music.
52:28
Some people like mayonnaise.
52:29
Some people like mustard.
52:30
You should repent.
52:32
But I forgive you.
52:33
That's fair enough.
52:34
That's good.
52:35
Hey, as long as they're forgiven, I guess it works out.
52:38
Okay.
52:38
Why not?
52:38
Thanks.
52:39
All right.
52:39
Next question here.
52:40
What would you say to someone that said, who is John Cooper to criticize a pastor for
52:44
trying to look cool?
52:45
He wears eyeliner and crazy clothes when performing on stage.
52:48
Well, let's see.
52:51
I don't have eyeliner on as you can see.
52:53
Not right now.
52:53
No, for sure.
52:54
Yes, that's right.
52:55
No, I mean, I think that it's a different thing.
52:57
I think that we should dress according to the calling that we have.
53:01
And I'm not trying to be legalistic.
53:03
I don't care if a pastor wants to wear jeans and a t-shirt.
53:06
But I'm saying that you should look and act appropriate for your job.
53:10
If you're a construction worker and you show up and address,
53:13
that feels something that's inappropriate.
53:15
All right.
53:18
Fair enough.
53:18
We are halfway through.
53:19
Let's keep going.
53:20
What would you say to someone that said, reformed Christians don't really care about people.
53:25
They more so care about being right.
53:30
I would say you're probably right.
53:32
That's probably fair and I'm joking.
53:36
I am reformed.
53:37
I'm about 90% reformed.
53:39
So that's why I say they're right.
53:41
Absolutely reformed people in my humble opinion.
53:44
I'm one of them.
53:45
I'm one of you.
53:45
Don't be bad.
53:46
Do tend to come off a little bit like really what they just care about
53:50
is dotting the eyes and crossing the T's.
53:52
So I would say this.
53:54
We are all guilty of sending every minute of every day.
53:57
If we had any idea of how much we did not love others, all of us,
54:02
we would celebrate God's grace even more.
54:05
So I would probably say, yeah, I think there's probably a little bit of truth to that.
54:09
But I also know a bunch of reformed people who consider
54:11
understanding who God is, is how they worship him.
54:17
They worship him by understanding who they are worshiping.
54:21
And I think that that should be celebrated.
54:22
All right.
54:23
That question was for one of our listeners, Ryan Horn.
54:26
He specifically gets an argument Smith, we all the time about theological topic.
54:30
So I thought that that was hilarious.
54:31
So I took a low key shot at him.
54:33
So what did you say to someone that said, a good loving God couldn't send anyone to help?
54:39
First, you have to define what love is.
54:43
And you have to define what good is.
54:44
And the problem is, is that we tend to, I have an idea of what I think good is.
54:50
And then I take that idea, John Cooper's idea of good.
54:53
And I put it into the Bible and say, that's what a loving God would be again.
54:57
So what I would say to them is this, that God defines what good is.
55:00
God defines what love is.
55:02
And he is at all times loving, even when he sends someone to help.
55:06
All right.
55:08
Next question here.
55:08
What would you say to someone that said, my pastor is cool.
55:12
Should I leave my church?
55:13
No, no, no.
55:15
I think that just comes probably the semantics of what I intended cool to me.
55:19
If your pastor is someone that you get the feeling cares about his brand or how white his teeth are,
55:26
more than he cares about the word of God, then yeah, at that point you leave your church.
55:30
But him being, quote, cool.
55:33
Is it really the issue?
55:34
It's really about the heart.
55:35
All right.
55:36
The last and perhaps most important question of the day.
55:39
What would you say to someone that said, you're not a real man unless you have a beard?
55:47
Well, I always tell people this, a lot of girls don't like beards, but women do.
55:53
I like that.
55:57
I like that for sure.
55:58
So I mean, again, we didn't get a lot of time to talk about your brand.
56:02
You've got your own line of beard oil and beard products.
56:05
And guys, that's going to be in the show notes as well.
56:07
So you can check that out.
56:08
It's called hawk and hatchet.
56:10
Unfortunately, we don't have a ton of time to get into that.
56:12
But guys, I would highly suggest that you take a look at those materials.
56:15
But that is all for me.
56:17
We've talked about a lot of different things in this podcast.
56:19
And we really appreciate your time.
56:21
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
56:22
No, I enjoy being here and I love what you're doing.
56:27
I love the message and all those dudes out there rocking.
56:31
Hey, man, lift for Jesus.
56:33
I love it.
56:33
I hope to come back and chat with y'all again.
56:36
We will certainly make it happen.
56:38
John Cooper, thanks for coming on Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
56:42
All right, all right.
56:47
All right, guys.
56:47
Thanks so much for listening to this episode with John Cooper.
56:49
We really do appreciate it.
56:51
Man, we had a great time with him.
56:52
We've got some more stuff coming up with John Cooper.
56:54
So be on the lookout for that.
56:55
Guys, before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
56:58
As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our mission
57:01
is cultivating mainly resilience.
57:03
And specifically, we do that by providing you content like this podcast.
57:06
It helps you forge spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
57:08
So I'm going to go through the links for you today.
57:10
I've got a link to John Cooper's website.
57:12
I've got a link to the Cooper stuff podcast.
57:13
You should definitely check that out.
57:15
I've also got a link to the book, Awake and Alive to Truth,
57:17
Finding Truth and the Chaos of a Relativistic World.
57:20
That is the book that we talked about at Nauseam.
57:21
So I can get you to the website so you can pick that up.
57:24
Also, I've got a link to the Make Pastors on Cool Again Facebook post,
57:27
and then the Hawk and Hatchet John Cooper signature line.
57:30
So you can get your beard stuff going with his products.
57:33
All right, guys.
57:34
Thanks so much for listening to this podcast.
57:35
Really do appreciate it.
57:36
If you would, please subscribe wherever you are listening to this show.
57:39
We are everywhere.
57:40
If we deserve a five star review, please leave us one in a few sentences,
57:42
letting us know why you like the content.
57:45
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2021.
57:48
So if you only come speak on your podcast at your men's event,
57:50
at your team, just hit me up info at undaunted.life.
57:53
The email is i-n-f-o at undaunted.life.
57:56
The website is www.undaunted.life.
57:59
You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undauntedlife or Facebook.com/undauntedlife.
58:04
Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app.
58:06
Just search undaunted life under plans.
58:08
And as always, we want to thank the band, August Burns Red,
58:10
for allowing us to use their entire music library for our content.
58:13
The entire outro track on this podcast is our song Defender,
58:16
which is off their latest record entitled Guardians.
58:18
The links are in the description.
58:20
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
58:22
Remember, keep cultivating mainly resilience,
58:25
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.
58:28
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
58:38
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.